The current state is a good solution, imho. Of course one may has to learn the states, but the functionality and the graphical representation of the state is seen much often in the internet, e.g. Stop/Play videos.

Everyone should also consider, that there are more thing which shows the actual state of a building: We have tooltips which shows what happen on a click on the buttons (Stop/Continue), and there are the buildings statistics (Key 's') which shows also if a building is stopped or not.

The current state is a good solution, imho. Of course one may has to learn the states, but the functionality and the graphical representation of the state is seen much often in the internet, e.g. Stop/Play videos.

There is one major difference though. When I press a pause/play button on a video player, I have instant feedback. The video plays or stops. We don't have this here.

Everyone should also consider, that there are more thing which shows the actual state of a building: We have tooltips which shows what happen on a click on the buttons (Stop/Continue), and there are the buildings statistics (Key 's') which shows also if a building is stopped or not.

As I stated before, these are no clear indicators. When I open the window, I don't see the buildings current state. I do see the state for priority and number of wares, though.

Another option would be to have one button with a StartStop symbol that never changes and add an icon visualizing the current state into the title bar corner

How about this? We leave the button as it is. When the building is stopped, the text in the title bar (building name) is set to UI_FONT_CLR_DISABLED, This would be a clear indicator that the building is inactive.

How about this? We leave the button as it is. When the building is stopped, the text in the title bar (building name) is set to UI_FONT_CLR_DISABLED, This would be a clear indicator that the building is inactive.

No idea what UI_FONT_CLR_DISABLED means, but i think this sound good to me

Maybe replacing the red x by a red stop/pause symbol like on a video player? This change wouldn't bother me.

This does not solve the problem that it is unclear whether the icon indicates the current state or the state that will be changed to by clicking the button…

I think it's clear, because buttons in Widelands have symbols on them which show what happens if you press them. And by default no building is on stop, so this is another reason for the opinion that it's not unclear.

stonerl wrote:
That is similar to the rookie/hero setting in the military buildings.

Good that you mention them. I think it would be a nice to have a third option there which is "neither prefer heroes or rookies" / "don't commit soldier exchanges"

stonerl wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

I'm against changes here. The current buttons are clear and further buttons would make it just unnecessarily complicated.

Where do I see the buildings current state? Only by turning the building statistics on.

Or you have the building stats always turned on anyway and you see it immediately...

All other UI elements clearly show what their current state is, and what state you change them to. See the priority settings for wares or the wares settings itself.

No. Directly next to the stop button there are the destroy- and the dismantle-button. They show the current state?

stonerl wrote:

kaputtnik wrote:

The current state is a good solution, imho. Of course one may has to learn the states, but the functionality and the graphical representation of the state is seen much often in the internet, e.g. Stop/Play videos.

There is one major difference though. When I press a pause/play button on a video player, I have instant feedback. The video plays or stops. We don't have this here.

Yes, we have instant feedback: If you look at the building you see that it's stopped.

stonerl wrote:

Her the window when the building is working:

This when it is stopped:

(The text in the second one looks blurry because I used GIMP)

I think you just managed to find a solution which bothers noone or am I wrong?

“It's a threat to our planet to believe that someone else will save it.” - Robert Swan

If we go for the one with the greyed-out title bar, we should append " (stopped)" to the window title IMHO.

The reason this discussion came up is that in my constructionsite_options branch, we would like to make the button that determines whether the building will be initially stopped or not when construction is complete look like the StartStop button. But there is no instant feedback there, so the current design is not applicable. I am currently using a Checkbox instead of a toggle button for it, and it could only be made consistent if the current button was redesigned to clearly indicate the current state…

If we go for the one with the greyed-out title bar, we should append " (stopped)" to the window title IMHO.

I guess this could work.

The reason this discussion came up is that in my constructionsite_options branch, we would like to make the button that determines whether the building will be initially stopped or not when construction is complete look like the StartStop button. But there is no instant feedback there, so the current design is not applicable. I am currently using a Checkbox instead of a toggle button for it, and it could only be made consistent if the current button was redesigned to clearly indicate the current state…

Maybe I failed to make this clear in my first post. But yes, we want to have the UI as unified as possible and therefore need to reconsider some aspects of it, thanks for pointing this out again.